


katabasis

by venndaai



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Body Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-07-28 19:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7653673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Sphene met the Presger and saved all of human and AI civilization.</p><p>Well, actually, how Sphene saved Zeiat. The all of civilization part was just an unfortunate side effect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Great thanks to zerodaysdone for Translator advice!

  
“New rule,” Zeiat said, dribbling fish sauce into her tea with one of _Mercy of Kalr's_  delicate silver spoons. As always she seemed wholly intent upon the game. _Sphene_ was directing some of its attention to it- rather more than it had anticipated, when they had begun playing. Now that it was in the same system as itself the majority of its thoughts were with its greater self. It felt the sensations of moving through the void. It coordinated its segments as they cleaned and repaired and, to _Sphene's_ disgust, hummed to themselves, apparently infected with _Mercy of Kalr's_ disease. But most of _Sphene_ slept, as it had for three thousand years, lulled into half awareness by the pressure of loneliness and loss. And this one brain could be absorbed in whatever it wished. Which more and more often turned out to be endless counter games.

“New rule,” Zeiat said, spoon twirling. “Each piece has a, hmm, a secret color that no one can see. I know, I know, it isn't real, it's for the purposes of the game, you see. But! It can see the color of the piece across from it! And if you land on a piece, you can ask it!”

“All right,” _Sphene_ said, languid, flat. Like it didn't care at all.

Zeiat's black eyes were sparkling. Her tied-back tail of hair was pristine as always, but a single curl had come loose to fall in front of one ear. _Sphene_ had to stifle an urge to tuck it back.

They played another round and _Sphene_ won. “Oh, not again,” Zeiat said regretfully.

“Don't feel bad, Translator,” _Sphene_ said. “You've won the last two out of five. That's twenty times the success of any human I've played against.”

Zeiat looked up from the board and peered at _Sphene_. “You're thinking about something,” she pronounced. Her eyebrows rose. “Are you remembering? How fun!” Now her expression turned wistful. So animated, her face. The absolute opposite of an ancillary's. “I wish I had more memories.”

“They aren't always fun,” _Sphene_ said.

“This one is, though,” Zeiat argued. “I can tell. Well, I think I can! Am I right?”

“I suppose,” _Sphene_ said. “I was remembering my last captain. She loved counters. She insisted on traditional rules, though. Not like you, Translator.” Zeiat laughed, tinklingly. “She was appallingly bad at every version,” _Sphene_ continued. “It was tragic, really. She insisted on practicing with me, but I could never teach her anything. She just lost, over and over again.”

“That sounds horrible!” Zeiat exclaimed, seemingly overcome by emotion.

“Yes, well,” _Sphene_ said, “she died, so it doesn't matter, really.”

If it had told this story to one of its Cousins, or to Kalr Five, it would have received horrified pity and that it wouldn't have been able to tolerate. Zeiat just didn't understand. She blinked, said, “That was interesting, thank you for telling me,” and ate another fish cake. She seemed to _Sphene_ to be beautifully pure of the ugly feelings of loss and anger that humans had given their creations. That impression was bound to be flawed, another way that _Sphene_ misunderstood Zeiat as much as Zeiat misunderstood _Sphene_ , but. Still.

Zeiat asked, “Do you have any other stories?” and _Sphene_ found itself talking again. It had a lot of stories, actually. Stories it had thought would do nothing but molder in its memory banks until its final death. But it found it liked the idea of Minask's life recorded, preserved somewhere, even if only by aliens who could never understand it.

 

* * *

 

 _Sphene's_ corridors had been elegant, once. Lined with thick woven carpets and intricate mosaics of glass. The carpets had long ago crumbled into dust, exposing metal bones to stains and scuffs. The mosaics were all shattered, victims of _Sphene's_ own passing rages, spiderwebs of destruction marking where ancillaries had channeled that anger with their closed fists.

Zeiat's pristine gray boots kicked up puffs of dust as she walked. Her gloved hands trailed along the broken mosaics. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open slightly, her expression rapt. “This is you?” she said, and “This is you? This is you as well?”

“Yes,” _Sphene_ said, walking beside her, “yes. Yes.”

They reached the officer's lounge, the engraved legs of the table throwing long shadows in the dim light. Zeiat spun on one heel, taking in a full view. “You're _beautiful_ ,” she whispered, and a swell of _something_ washed over _Sphene's_ fifteen bodies, the ones that were awake pausing in their tasks, the sleeping bodies shifting and dreaming of vanished warmth and life.

The body next to Zeiat stayed blank, flat, steady. “Thank you, Translator,” it said.

 

* * *

 

  
“Goodbye,” Zeiat said, “I enjoyed our game,” and then she was stepping over the gravity boundary into her strange little ship, and then she was gone.

 _Sphene_ stood there, next to _Justice of Toren_ and her pet lieutenants, and felt alone, and wasn't sure whether it was the segment feeling that or the entirety of _Sphene_ , if the loneliness was physical or a resurgence of a familiar spiritual state of existence.

Quietly, flatly, pitched so only _Sphene_ could hear, the young Mercy of Kalr soldier- Ettan Vinend- said, “I'm sure she'll be back.”

 _Sphene_ actually almost liked Ettan, but that was far too close to pity, and it gave her a cold glare before turning on its heel and striding out of the airlock. “Cousin,” _Justice of Toren_ called behind it, but her next words were cut off by the hissing door.

 _Sphene_ wandered back to the Undergarden and found a quiet dirty corner to sit for an hour without moving or opening its eyes.

 

* * *

 

  
Everything seemed even flatter than usual, after that. Security wouldn't let it anywhere near the Usurper's cell, presumably under strict orders from _Sphene's_ _lovely_ cousin. Who invited _Sphene_ to dinner and sprung the angry, crude little tea picker on it, yet again, despite both of them making it extremely clear, _Sphene_ had thought, that there was a real danger of one of them strangling the other.

The captain made a transparent attempt to leave them to each other, but thankfully the tea picker's mildly more tolerable sister insisted on remaining and engaging _Sphene_ in a discussion of the new construction in the Undergarden, to which _Sphene_ responded as rudely and sarcastically as it could. A few minutes into this Queter abruptly mentioned a previous engagement and left, her sister making their excuses and following her. _Sphene_ took this as its own cue to remove its segment to a more pleasant environment, not bothering to find its cousin first.

Its ship-body patrolled the edges of Republic space. Its segments worked on more repairs, replaced dead lighting, and installed a new pair of fish to replace the long-dead inhabitants of the decorative aquarium. The segment on the station attended endless meetings and longed to be with the rest of it.

The large, bright red and blue fish were of a kind _Sphene_ remembered Translator Zeiat particularly appreciating. If this fact related to _Sphene's_ new urge to scrub the decay from its corridors, it did not dwell on the connection.

* * *

 

“Cousin,” the Fleet Captain said nearly two short Athoeki years later, clearly half-listening to something _Sphene's_ station segment could feel but not hear, “a Presger shuttle has entered the system and is requesting permission to dock.” She hesitated a moment, a strange uncharacteristic thing for her, then continued. “It appears to be only half a day's journey from the station.”

Dangerously close, and nowhere near the system gate. Perhaps it had been somehow invisible until this moment. But perhaps not. So close- either the Presger had more advanced navigational ability than humans, or whoever was in that shuttle did not care if they caused damage. It was most likely the former. No one even knew for sure if the Presger used gatespace within their own systems, or if they possessed some other more mysterious travel method.

 _Sphene_ was a ship, and could ponder this while also struggling with looping thoughts, building in intensity and urgency- who was aboard that shuttle? Only half a day's journey. Something was different. Something could be wrong. The Translator- for surely the shuttle's passenger could only be one of them- would be on board Athoek Station that afternoon. The greater part of _Sphene_ sent signal after signal in short staccato bursts towards the shuttle, received no answer, no acknowledgment at all.

“I'd like to wait by the airlock,” _Sphene_ said, through its ancillary mouth. “With your permission, Cousin.”  
  
She gestured to say, of course, and _Sphene_ turned, and walked, slowly, leisurely, no one would arrive for hours, there was no rush. It would not run under Station's judgmental observation. It would not, no matter how much it wanted to.

It stopped in a shop by the concourse and bought some fish sauce, with the basic allowance _Justice of Toren_ had decided it should receive along with an official record of citizenship and a title of Military Advisor. There was no time to look for fish-shaped cakes. It would have to do.

 

* * *

 

  
The figure that exited the shuttle was Zeiat, or looked like her, at least. _Sphene_ somehow registered this before it processed the bright red blood on her face and hands, or the fact that she appeared to be bare-chested under her open jacket, but the skin was completely concealed under haphazard layers of overlapping correctives. The Translator swayed like a drunkard. “Hello,” she said cheerfully, voice hoarse. “Lovely to see you all again. I have some bad news-” She vomited a torrent of blood, mucus and what looked horribly like bits of lung, and fell over.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Justice of Toren_ got to her first, and held her until the station medics arrived. _Sphene_ stood to the side, resenting its cousin, resenting itself, trying to fill itself up with resentment so there was no room for fear.

The medic in charge at the station facilities was, in _Sphene's_ opinion, disgustingly cheerful, though she grew more solemn as she examined Zeiat's body. “Amaat bless,” she exclaimed. “There's internal bleeding pretty much everywhere, and all her organs are shutting down. Her immune system seems to be attacking her. Frankly, I'm astonished she's still breathing.”

“Grabbed the correctives,” Zeiat muttered. “They forgot I know how I'm built. They got to the others first. I saw what they were doing. Took the correctives and ran for it.” Her mouth spread into a wide grin, showing bloodstained teeth. “I'm very good at running. They don't know I'm here.”

“That is a relief,” _Justice of Toren_ said evenly.

“Well,” Zeiat allowed, “they probably don't particularly care. Might not have looked very far.”

“Be a dear and open your mouth,” the medic told her. “And I'd advise less talking.” Zeiat obediently pried open her jaws, and the medic jammed about five different internals down her throat. “Swallow,” she ordered, holding a cup of water to Zeiat's lips. The Translator did as she was told, and the medic peered narrowly at her, presumably watching the progress of the internals as they moved to where they were supposed to be. _Sphene_ wanted to see, but it was not connected to Station, would probably not been given access even if it had been. Did not even want to speak at the moment, in case its cousin decided it was not supposed to be here, in this small partition of the medical facility, crowded in with _Justice of Toren_ and assorted human hangers-on.

Zeiat looked smaller horizontal, her towering height and broad shoulders disappearing into the sea of red-spotted white. She was smiling slightly. Patiently. Indulging the medical examination. _Sphene_ curled its hands so tightly by its sides that even its chewed-down fingernails bit into the flesh of its palms, even through thick layers of cloth.

“Well,” the medic said after a moment, “if you were your average garden variety human, I'd say we need to start organ replacements immediately. Get some transplants in until we can grow real clones from your stem cells. Then do some blood transfusions, pump your bloodstream full of corrective fluid.” She looked at Zeiat. “Can you tell me if your body would accept replacements?”

Zeiat was shaking her head, as much as she could while flat, head confined by pillows. “I do appreciate your creativity,” she said, “but it really isn't any use. We built ourselves with switches, you see. If we ever become, _ha_ , _obsolete_ \- flick the switch and there we go! Very neat.Very tidy. Unless you try to interrupt the process.” She bent her chin to look down at her bloodstained jacket. “Then it becomes quite messy, _ha ha_.”

“Translator,” _Justice of Toren_ said, “I apologize, but I must ask you to explain what has happened to you.”

Zeiat tsked, a dry hoarse sound from a ruined throat. “I'm fairly certain I did, Fleet Captain, you must learn to keep up. They decided they didn't need us any more. Well, they didn't, did they? Not after the Conclave.”

 _Sphene_ knew _Justice of Toren_ had already come to the same horrible conclusion _Sphene_ had some seconds ago, but still, the word _Conclave_ was a confirmation that hit like a physical blow. “And what happened at the Conclave?” _Justice of Toren_ asked, just a shade unsteady. Not something anyone but another ancillary would have noticed.

“They decided you were all Insignificant,” Zeiat said, and promptly started coughing, and did not stop for a long time.

 

* * *

 

“I wasn't at the actual conclave. I told you, I'm not important enough. So they didn't see me- didn't remember Dlique and I existed until a little later.” Something flashed across her face at the mention of her sister, and then it was gone, like the shadow of a cloud skidding across a pond. “Well, _I_ think you're significant. Not to mention, I've quite enjoyed existing, and I resent having that taken away without even a bit of warning. So I took a ship and left. I had to break the treaty to get here in time, but, well, I think it's fairly broken already, wouldn't you agree? Not the actual treaty, I think that's in a museum somewhere on one of those fancy palaces. Dlique saw it once. At a winter casting party. They had delicious drinks. She told me about them.”

“Please don't talk so fast,” the medic complained, trying to force Zeiat to drink more water. She was the only human in the room not frozen in horror. _Justice of Toren_ was not visibly distressed, but she had folded her arms across her chest, and her expression was very flat.

“You came here to warn us?” _Sphene's_ cousin inquired.

“Indeed!” Zeiat said. “And I also had what I think might be a brilliant idea, if you'll pardon my saying so. You don't know anything about Them, or what they're capable of. I do, but I really have no idea how to explain any of it so you'll understand, and we really don't have time.” She moved her head slightly, to gesture at her collapsing body. “But you do have that interesting process where you hook people up to your ships, yes? So I thought, before I died, I could do that with Sphene.”

The humans were looking at _Sphene_. It did not speak. It did not move.

 _Justice of Toren_ said, “You understand, Translator, that would be as good as killing you.”

“Well, of course. I do understand some things, you know.”

“You seem very blasé about the prospect.”

“Well, you know what they say about mortality! Eventually, it stops swimming.” She cleared her throat loudly. “Actually I think they say that about fish, but it suits mortality better, don't you agree? Fish will keep floating after they're dead, and that's sort of swimming. Unfortunately,” she said, voice briefly pitching upwards, “I'm not a fish.” This long pronouncement seemed to have exhausted her air supply, and she took a few long, rattling breaths, sucking in air.

“Translator,” _Justice of Toren_ said, blank and flat as she only got when she was considerably stressed, “there must be something we can-”

“Although,” Zeiat interrupted, drawing out the vowel, “I could almost be a fish.” She pursed her lips, made a wet sound, and spat a thick mix of blood and bits of tissue onto the pristine white sheet. “Glub glub, see?”

 _Sphene_ punched the wall.

It hadn't meant to do it, exactly, hadn't thought about it, though its body had known to hit the correct way so that it did not have a broken wrist, merely what would soon be bad bruises. It had hit with full augmented strength, and these interior walls were not metal under their coating of pale paint but some kind of plaster; dust drifted from the hole _Sphene_ had created.

Ettan, the other human soldier, the station Administrator, and the traitor Notai lieutenant all stepped backwards in some alarm. _Justice of Toren_ did not physically react, did not look at _Sphene_ or in any way acknowledge its action. At least she did not order _Sphene_ to leave. Though _Sphene_ thought it might have welcomed such an order, at this moment.

“Is there something wrong, Sphene?” Zeiat asked. Pausing between words to gulp air as though each breath might be her last. Addressing _Sphene_ , acknowledging it for the first time since her arrival.

 _Sphene_ felt its own breaths coming harshly. “You,” it said. “You're what's wrong. You and what you're doing, right now.”

“What should I be doing?” Zeiat asked calmly. “Do tell me, I so often miss the details with these sorts of things.”

“You should be showing emotion,” _Sphene_ said, struggling with its frustration.

“And which emotions should those be?”

“Anger. Distress. Fear.”

Zeiat looked at _Sphene's_ segment with black eyes so clear even beneath a fever haze. Looked at the segment's blank face and loose-limbed posture. “That's what you're feeling,” she said. “And you aren't trying to make yourself different because of it.”

 _Sphene_ turned its head away and did not speak.

"Hmm," Zeiat hummed, apparently considering something, and then she turned her head weakly and said, horribly breathy, "Fleet Captain, begging your indulgence et cetera, do you think you might all be so good as to give Sphene and I just a-" Cough- "a little bit of privacy?"

 _Justice of Toren_ nodded at her little group of pets and they followed her out behind the white curtain. After a moment of uncertainty, the obnoxious medic followed suit, and it was just _Sphene_ and Zeiat and the multitude of small devices that were failing to keep Zeiat alive. The awareness of _Sphene_ as itself, as a construction of metal and fire floating in the vacuum a million miles from the small white space, faded away, as did the perception of this body being just one ancillary part of the greater more significant whole. All of _Sphene's_ attention was in this room, breathing the sterilized air, listening to the distant murmur of voices, feeling cold. This was like- this had not happened very often before.

Zeiat's gray-gloved hand curled upward. A beckoning gesture. _Sphene's_ body moved without orders, stepping closer, lifting the long, broad hand and clasping it in _Sphene's_ own brown gloves. Same cheap, extruded material; different colors. The pressure was oddly comforting. This time _Sphene_ could not stop the memory of Minask. Her hand had been bare. Brown-black skin. These hands now had never touched her. This body had been stolen three thousand years after she was gone.

"I'm sorry," Zeiat said. "I should have realized this would be distressing."

 _Sphene_ snorted.

Zeiat opened her mouth, managed to get out "I said-" and then spasmed, coughing blood and making small high noises of pain. It took _Sphene_ a moment to realize she'd tried to double over and been prevented by the hard casing of correctives, which had pressed sharply into the muscles of her upper abdomen. _Sphene_ wiped the blood from around Zeiat's mouth. There was nothing else for it to do.

"I _said_ I was sorry," Zeiat repeated, when she had her breath back. "It's just you never acted like the, you know, those _other_ people. So I forgot you _are_ actually a person, like them. I think perhaps you might forget sometimes, yourself."

Tightly, flatly, _Sphene_ said through its ancillary's mouth, "I do not forget anything."

"Everything forgets sometimes," Zeiat argued. "Even things that aren't 'people'. Even me. Fish forget to swim. Eggs forget to hatch. Dlique forgets to breathe."

 _Sphene_ did not reply. She looked very pathetic, lying there. It would be churlish to contradict her.

"The others," Zeiat whispered. "The... the older Translators, I suppose. They're gone, and I feel bad about it." She was frowning, her forehead wrinkling in what looked like mild frustrated confusion. "I never felt bad about it before I was Zeiat so maybe that's it but I think it's also. Knowing I'll never meet them again. Before, you know, someone might die in some boring stupid way, but someone else might always be them later. And now we're all gone for good." She blinked slowly. "I don't think I even liked most of them. I always wanted to be here instead."

 _Sphene_ didn't want to have this conversation, wanted to leave, wanted to be on the other side of the station. But Zeiat deserved better than _Sphene's_ cowardice. It forced itself to say, "I felt much the same about losing my sibling ships."

"Oh," Zeiat said. "Oh, I think I see. Thank you."

She lifted her hand, and reached, waveringly, to touch the tears leaking from _Sphene's_ stolen eyes. Then she brought her glove up to her face, and delicately tasted it.

 _Sphene_ scrubbed its face with the back of its arm.

"If you don't want to do it, of course we don't have to," Zeiat said. "I'll ask someone else. I was fond of the idea of being a part of you. And since I know you wanted more of your ancillary things, I thought you might enjoy it even if I didn't last very long." She made a compressed gesture, not much more than a flick of the wrist. "And I suppose it would be rather uncomfortable, and you'd want to shut down my body as soon as you could, and I know enough to understand that would be upsetting. I see now it was a stupid idea. If you'll call the others back in, I'll ask if Mercy of Kalr would be willing to-"

"No," _Sphene_ said. Sharper and louder than it had meant to. Zeiat stopped talking, only coughed quietly.

 

* * *

 

 

It could run. It was good at running. It could easily abandon the Provisional Republic, all these irritating humans and Cousins, rules and restrictions, boring meetings, _Justice of Toren_ , Ettan, the angry tea girl. Minask's tea set was safely stowed in _Sphene's_ captain's quarters. _Sphene_ could leave right now, leave this body, run somewhere far more isolated than the Ghost System. Could hide for another few millenia, until its last ancillary wore out and there were no hands to make repairs, and then it would die.

Never having seen Zeiat again.

“No,” _Sphene_ repeated. “Fuck that, fuck the Presger, fuck you. I am going to fix this.”

Zeiat looked utterly perplexed.

“COUSIN,” _Sphene_ said, pitched loud enough to be earsplitting. _Justice of Toren_ rounded the corner, practically at a run, the humans appearing a moment later. “Not you,” _Sphene_ said. It turned its head upwards, towards the unobtrusive cameras and speakers. “I need a suspension pod,” _Sphene_ announced. “I need someone to help me put the Translator in it and carry it to the docks. I need a docking bay cleared for me in the next three hours.”

 _Justice of Toren_ stared at her. “And if I oppose this?”

“Do not. Fucking. Test me.”

“Zeiat's probably right,” the Fleet Captain said. “Making her into an ancillary is probably our best chance at survival.”

“There _is_ no fucking chance of survival,” _Sphene_ said. “We're both insane to think otherwise. But my plan involves _not killing her_.”

Athoek Station said, soft, all around them, “I would like to help Cousin Sphene.”

 _Justice of Toren_ made a gesture of surrender. “Well,” she said. “That's your prerogative.”

There was the sound of a door sliding open. _Sphene_ yanked back the curtain. Two Security officers had entered the rooms carrying a human-sized pod. _Sphene_ went back to Zeiat's side. Held her hand again.

Zeiat looked at her, wide-eyed and closer to sad than _Sphene_ had ever seen her. “You're wonderfully creative,” she whispered. “And brave. But it won't work.”

 _Sphene_ nodded. “Probably,” it said.

The Translator's free hand moved inside her ruined coat. Produced a small white rod. It appeared to be made of the same material as the curious weapon _Justice of Toren_ had possessed, because gray bloomed where Zeiat's glove held it. Zeiat offered it to _Sphene_. It took the thing. “That'll tell you where to go, I think,” Zeiat said. “You'll have to wake me up when we get there.”

“I object to all of this on principle,” the medic said to _Sphene_ , who would have gestured rudely at her if it had felt up to it. She turned to Zeiat. “At least let me give you painkillers.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Zeiat sighed, and offered her arm so the medic could yank down the sleeve and apply several patches to the exposed skin. It worked quickly; Zeiat sighed again, closed her eyes, and went slack against the bed. _Sphene_ reluctantly let go of her hand, and gestured to the security persons, who set down the pod, pressed the button that opened it, and very carefully lifted the Translator off the bed and into the pod.

When they'd stepped back, Zeiat opened her eyes, looking for Sphene, who leaned over her. She let out a small bubbling laugh. “Being a Translator hasn't worked out very well, has it?” she asked. _Sphene_ could see she was losing her focus. “I think I'd rather be a fish,” she said, drowsily. “When it's all over, put me with them. That would be fun, I think.”

“I absolutely will not,” _Sphene_ said. “I'll make sure you get put somewhere very boring. So you'd better stay alive.”

Before it could lose its nerve, it bent down and pressed its lips to Zeiat's burning-hot forehead. Then it stepped back, pressed the button, watched the lid slide back and seal with a hiss, and stared at everyone, daring them to comment. The Notai lieutenant looked uncomfortable. Ettan was trying to be blank as usual, but to Sphene's eyes she looked bizarrely sad. The security people were looking away. _Justice of Toren_ said, “Good luck, Cousin.”

“Keep your luck,” _Sphene_ said. The security people picked up the pod. _Sphene_ followed them out.

 

* * *

 

 

It waited in the airlock, feeling itself come closer, ancient engine straining at the fastest possible safe speed inside a system. Clutching the small little data stick. Folded up next to the pod. _Justice of Toren's_ irritating humming looping endlessly in its head.

In its _segment's_ head.

“Hello,” Queter said.

 _Sphene_ looked up, but didn't say anything. Didn't know what it could possibly say. Why Queter might possibly be here.

“I was going to wish you luck,” Queter said in her harshly accented Radchaai, “but the station informed me it most likely wouldn't be accepted.”

 _Sphene_ made a tiny gesture of acknowledgment.

“I just wanted to say I don't hate you.”

 _Sphene_ opened its mouth. Said, “Why not?”

“You're desperate,” the Valskaaian said. “You've been desperate for a long time. I know something about that.” She shrugged. “It was the Fleet Captain's fault, for throwing us at each other like that. Have you noticed she's incredibly stupid and insufferable sometimes?”

The segment made itself smile just slightly. Another acknowledgment.

“She gets an idea in her head of what people are like, and then she just assumes everything about you. She assumed I'd want to live up here. She assumed I'd want to be a bloody _Radchaai captain_.” Not technically true, but _Sphene_ agreed with the sentiment. “She assumes I want to sit through tea once a month listening to her misgender me and make assumptions about the tea workers and be familiar in a language she has _no right_ to use.”

“Ha,” Sphene said.

“She probably does similar things to you, yes?”

 _Sphene_ hesitated a moment, but it had already exposed itself to half the station, it might as well vent its petty frustrations on a nonhuman who didn't matter anyway. “She assumed I wanted a captain,” it snarled with a vicious bitter anger that actually surprised it. It hadn't realized it cared so much about _Justice of Toren's_ opinions. “Not even a pathetic halfway civilized excuse for a captain, like that ignorant little watered-down Notai treacherous shit. A _Valskaaian tea picker_.” It was being very rude. It felt good. “Like she was some kind of pet, to be _replaced_. Like I could just fill myself up with an awful uncivilized mockery of a crew and pretend the last three fucking _millenia_ never happened and I could be a shiny obedient little ship again. Just kill the rats and wash off the dust, slap on a new coat of paint. I knew she was an uneducated child, and troop carriers always think they know best, but still, the _nerve_.” She was breathing hard. The loss was rising back up in her, as painful as ever, the longing for the noise and movement of her officers, the longing for Minask, her touch, her breath, her full deep laugh, the light sparkling off the walls of Sphene's rooms and glittering in its captain's hair, in her warm dark eyes. For orders, and morning prayers, purification rituals, the songs and poems of civilization, the elaborate tea ceremonies, the surety of purpose, of justice, propriety and benefit, the protection of the light of the Radch the highest, the only goal.

“I'm sorry,” Queter said. “And I know it doesn't mean anything to you, but I wish your side had won. Then neither of us would be here.”

“I'm sorry too,” _Sphene_ said. “I should not have bought bodies.” It had known it was wrong. That Minask would be disgusted by its actions. It had decided it didn't care. That nothing mattered any more. That it could sell the tea set as though it were worthless junk. After all it was a failure who had gotten its officers killed and a coward who had run rather than fight and die, and now it was decaying and mad.

Queter's face tightened. “That doesn't bring them back,” she said. “But I'll remember it.”

 _Sphene_ shrugged.

Queter touched the smooth surface of the pod. “I don't know her, and she's kind of frightening. But I bet she'll be good for you.”

And there, a rush of unanticipated affection for the use of future tense. It did not understand its emotions today.

“Goodbye,” Queter said. “I'm sure we'll see each other again. I do hope it isn't very soon.” She turned and left, as abruptly as she'd come.

 

* * *

 

  
An hour later _Sphene_ was under way, moving out of range of the station and its traffic, the stick, inside one of its consoles, the suspension pod strapped down in the main officer's mess, beneath the aquarium and its newly acquired inhabitants. One of _Sphene's_ segments stood in command, ready to deal with any emergencies. The other seven sat or stood by the pod. Silent. Sometimes reaching out to each other for the reassurance of touch.

 _Sphene_ itself was busy calculating vectors and probabilities. It had eventually been able to decode the stick and extract a location on the edge of this arm of the galaxy. A month's travel in gate space instead of a year, thankfully. Fortunately its gate technology had been one of the first systems repaired once it had access to Athoek's technicians. However, it had not yet tested the repairs, and loathe as it was to admit it to itself, it was more than slightly nervous. It had not independently gated in more than three thousand years.

Of course, it ought to be much more afraid of what it would encounter on the other side. It had been cast out of the Radch some centuries before the Radch's first fatal encounters with the Presger, but it was well aware of how ships had fared against the aliens before the implementation of the treaty. With the treaty presumably voided, it was highly likely the Presger would simply dismantle _Sphene_ the second it exited gate space. If not before.

In the mess hall, one of the segments opened the box containing the tea set and gently traced the gold crack runing through the largest bowl. Another stood over the pod and watched Zeiat's sleeping face.

 _Sphene_ opened a portal into nothingness, and sailed unhesitatingly into it.


	2. Chapter 2

  
Suspended segments did not dream. AIs did not sleep. _Sphene_ moved through gatespace, engines silent except the systems responsible for maintaining this bubble of non-universe. The aquarium fish were fed automatically. Their purposeless swimming was the only motion on board.

A month was a long time. By now, there might not be any Provisional Republic to return to.

The silence was difficult. Funny how it took so short a time to get used to chatter and noise. The signals of other ships. The sounds of other voices in ancillary ears.

The urge to wake Zeiat was a physical ache. But there were so few minutes left. None of them could be wasted.

So there was nothing but _Sphene_ and the memories it had thought had quieted long ago.

 

* * *

 

Transfer of command on board a Gem was generally smooth and simple, and this one was no exception. Captain Ankalr gave a brief address to the officers as her ancillaries finished packing her possessions, and Ankalr and her ancillaries departed by shuttle to Inais Station, where the ancillaries would help her secure travel to her next assignment before returning to the ship. An hour later, the shuttle returned bearing the new captain. She had taken anti-nausea meds, and appeared nervous but energetic. She was tall for a well-bred Notai, thick and muscular, but her heritage was clearly visible in her cleft chin, long large nose and thick brows. She had an impressive service record as an officer on a Divine-class warship, proving she hadn't been promoted to captain based on her exalted house connections alone. In fact, despite her youth, her record ought to have recommended her to a higher captaincy than that of a mere Gem.

She'd been polite to the ship's ancillaries, but not awkwardly friendly. A good sign, _Sphene_ thought.

The other officers met their new captain at the Flower deck airlock. All bowed when the airlock door opened. The ancillaries behind them remained straight and still. “Sir,” the first lieutenant said respectfully. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Captain Minask said. “I'm glad to be here.”

Alone in her new quarters, the captain sat down on her bed and sighed. Segments One and Three moved around her, unpacking her luggage, lighting incense, brewing tea.

“It's all right, Ship,” Minask said, “I'd rather unpack those myself, actually.”

One withdrew from the luggage, showing just the slightest hint of cold offense.

Minask sighed again. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean- of course I trust you with my things. I just like the physical feeling of settling in to a new room.” She patted the bed. “Here. Sit down. I'd like to show you something.”

One hesitated, and then slowly sat. Three continued to busy itself with the tea things.

Minask bent down and slid a large, heavy-looking, beautifully-decorated box from a heavily cushioned bag. She lifted it carefully onto the bed. “Look,” she said, and lifted the lid, revealing the beautiful tea set within. The glass shone, casting colored reflections on One's expressionless face.

 

 

* * *

 

  
“Wake up,” _Sphene_ said flatly.

Zeiat opened her eyes, sputtered suspension foam. Tried to sit up. Four of _Sphene's_ hands pressed her down. She felt even hotter under _Sphene's_ touch than before, and weaker.

“Oh,” she said. “This is nice. I didn't think I'd get to wake up again.”

“Yes,” _Sphene_ said through two mouths, “well, we're here, and we haven't been destroyed yet. In fact there doesn't seem to be any sign of aliens at all.”

“Of course not,” Zeiat said, “they don't watch all the time, that would be so terribly boring. We have to make the opening move.” She closed her eyes, and did not speak for so long Sphene thought she had fallen back asleep. Then she opened them, slowly. “Well,” she said, faintly, “it's done.”

And a second later, They were undeniably there.

There was no sun out in this nowhere place to outline any form. _Sphene's_ heat sensors painted a blurred picture of something smaller than its shuttle, extremely, improbably dense, and jagged, bits shooting out like parabola calculation errors, thinning unto infinity.

“All right,” _Sphene_ said through the ancillary Zeiat knew best, calm and steady. “What do I need to know?”

Zeiat's laugh gurgled. “So much,” she said, “and there's so little I can explain. Hmm, let me think. All right. To Them, it's all- it's a counters game, a veery complicated one but also very simple, if you- No. Hmm. All right, counters. There's the pockets, and there's the counters. And counters are important in their own way, aren't they? You certainly wouldn't get very far trying to play without them!”

“Yes,” _Sphene_ said, shifting its hands to Zeiat's shoulders, squeezing them. “I understand. Slow down. Breathe.”

“But,” Zeiat said, as though Sphene hadn't interrupted, “counters can also ruin the game. If there are too many of them, for example! Or if one's in the wrong place! Then you'd have to eat some to balance it out, and that comes with its own set of rules.”

“We always added as many counters as we liked,” _Sphene_ pointed out.

Zeiat's smile was fond. “Yes,” she said. “We did.”

The Presger ship wasn't moving, or speaking, just hanging there in space.

Zeiat's hand moved around wildly until it caught on one of Sphene's. “You have to convince them you're an important kind of counter,” she said. “That chewing you up would mess with the whole thing. Don't mention all that being a person stuff. They won't be interested. It's the placement. Cakes are counters, but counters can be cakes. Or fish. It'll be fun. You have to-” She stopped, gasping. _Sphene_ realized in astonishment that she was crying and making no attempt to hide it, fat pink tears rolling down her gray cheeks. “I wouldn't have minded being a part of you,” she said. “Better than being part of Them.”

One of _Sphene_ \- the body that was accustomed to interacting with Zeiat, the thin long-haired Ychana one- climbed carefully into the one-person pod. There was just enough room to pull Zeiat into its arms, resting her head against its chest. The other one of _Sphene_ stood over them, stroking its fingers through Zeiat's sweat-drenched hair.

“I'm sorry,” the segment holding Zeiat said. “I couldn't do it. Can you forgive me?”

She didn't answer, but weakly wriggled closer, and breathed a little slower, though just as shallowly. _Sphene_ stroked her hair, which did not feel like Minask's, but the motion was still soothing.

“ _Sphene_ ,” Zeiat gasped suddenly, and she was scrabbling at the sides of the pod, she was grabbing at _Sphene's_ shoulders and pulling herself up so their faces were level, “ _Sphene_ , it's too late, I'm very sorry. Can you put me in the garden at least-”

“No,” _Sphene_ said, panicking. Thunking sounds as the other ancillaries came out of suspension, footsteps as they ran into the room, crowded around, desperate, useless. “Lie down, I'll close the pod up, you'll be fine, you-”

Zeiat's hand ran shaking over one of  _Sphene's_ mouths. “You're so very beautiful,” she whispered. “So bright. I think- I think maybe I feel-”

Her eyes rolled up in her head, and then stopped moving. Her mouth slackened. She slumped heavily into _Sphene's_ thin arms. Not moving. Not breathing. No sound of a heartbeat.

 _Sphene's_ bodies screamed, a shrieking inhuman chorus of pain. Its AI core screamed, sending a hail of radiation into the void. One of the bodies threw itself at the aquarium, glass smashing, cutting into skin, water cascading over the floor, over the pod, over the ancillary that held Zeiat's body, the only ancillary sitting silent and still. Another lifted the tea set in its box, and made to throw it. Stopped. Put it back down.

 _Sphene_ calmed itself. Shut off its radios. Shut off its engines. Shut off its lights.

Segments moved in the dark, laying Zeiat's body out flat in the pod, closing her eyelids over white eyes, folding her hands on the remains of the jacket. They sealed the pod and carried it into the one spaceworthy shuttle. The Ychana segment piloted the shuttle out of its bay, away from the bulk of itself, towards the dark invisible unknown of the Presger vessel.

About halfway there a long, spiderweb-thin spike whipped out from the Presger ship and speared through the shuttle, destroying the suspension pod and killing the piloting segment nearly instantly. _Sphene_ had only a moment to feel pain and horror before everything went strange.

 

* * *

 

She was in the officer's lounge, the way it had been, lit by a hundred tiny globed candles, light reflected and amplified by mirror-shard mosaics. Outside there was noise in the corridors, segments going about their duties, officers chatting to each other, someone somewhere praying. In here, she was-

She was-

“Sphene,” Minask said. “There you are. I've been looking for you.”

She was in her full dress uniform, and nervously adjusting an improperly folded cuff. Her long dress skirt had wrinkles in it. How had that happened? Minask must be perfectly dressed and cared for. Something had clearly gone wrong.

“Sir,” she said, bowing, and Minask laughed. It was as beautiful a laugh as she'd remembered.

“Don't stand on ceremony now,” Minask said, and caught her gloved hand, and drew her close and kissed her. Her mouth was deliciously warm. Her lips tasted of cinnamon gloss. Sphene- that was what Minask had called her, that must be her name- shivered in happy pleasure.

“Let me fix that,” she said, when they'd broken apart. She touched the improper cuff.

“There's no time,” Minask said. “Our guests don't like being kept waiting, remember?” She _tsked_ , and kissed the crease between Sphene's eyebrows. “Stop worrying, beloved.” She took Sphene's wrist, and pulled her towards the door. As they passed the mosaics Sphene caught flashes of herself in the small pieces of mirror. She saw a dark face, black skin and gold-flecked black eyes, short-cut thick hair, a pale green uniform to match Minask's, though with far less gold embroidery and only one small pin. She didn't know what else she'd expected to see.

There was no one in the corridor they went down, though she could still hear laughter and footsteps. They were moving forward, towards command. Sphene tried to keep her eyes on Minask, but she kept getting distracted by the decorations on the walls, the rich hangings, the murals with their swirls of gold paint. There was music playing somewhere, a tune she didn't recognize.

“All right,” Minask said, “let's try to look presentable,” and the door slid open, and Minask stepped onto the deck, Sphene following behind. The displays were bright, gold dots dancing on screens. The main wall displayed a view of utter blackness, devoid of any stars. Standing by the captain's seat, arms crossed behind their backs, were two Anaander Mianaais.

Sphene stepped backwards, nausea rolling through her. Minask didn't seem to notice. She stepped forward, bowed low. “My Lord,” she said. “We're honored to have you aboard.”

The right hand Mianaai laughed, a loud, harsh, cackling sound. The left one didn't react at all, but tilted her head to look around the room.

“What is going on,” Sphene whispered, and then shouted, _“What is going on?”_

The right hand Mianaai grabbed Minask's hands and turned them, closely observing the embroidery on her gloves. The left hand one looked at Sphene. “ _You're_ the one who shouted for _us_ ,” she said. “Not proper, not proper at all.” The right hand one cackled again.

“What have you _done_ to me,” Sphene cried.

Minask extricated her hands, and turned to Sphene. “They haven't done anything,” she said gently. “This is part of who you are. You try to hide it, but they don't understand hiding things. You know that.”

“This isn't fair,” Sphene said. She looked down at her jacket, and took off the singular pin so she could look at it. It was a green, blocky crystal in a silver setting, the silver engraved with the legend _'Zeiat of the Presger'._

“ _Fair!_ ” the left Mianaai crowed, and looked at her companion, as though expecting another appreciative cackle. But that one had apparently grown bored with the conversation and was trying to pry a panel off the wall.

“I suppose you expect a rhetorically brilliant argument for my species' right to exist,” Sphene said. She slipped the pin inside her glove so she could press its sharp edges into her skin, and folded her arms over her chest. She hated the way she was feeling, so exposed, so strange, surrounded by what looked like herself but was not. “I don't have one. I don't care about my species. I just want you to give Zeiat back.”

“That,” said one of the Mianaais, “is not very amusing.”

“Tough luck,” Sphene said, at last finding firm ground and planting herself on it. “I'm not a very amusing person. I won't be your fucking entertainment. You can't scare me, or make me cry, or get me irritated. I'm very old and I left all that behind a long time ago. All you can do is get me angry. And believe me.” She narrowed her eyes. “I am very fucking angry already. And not in an amusing way.”

“No,” one of Them said. It succeeded in breaking off a panel, and tossed it on the ground, apparently having lost interest. It looked at Sphene. “No, we can see that.”

“Good,” Sphene said. “Now here's my speech.” She turned her head so she could not see Minask's gentle smile, so she was only looking at the Mianaais. _“Fuck you, you alien fucks.”_ The voice she had now didn't want to speak like this, the person she seemed to be in this warm, soft illusion wanted to be warm and soft as well, but she could push through that, could reach that deep wellspring of endless rage. It helped to focus on that face she'd known for so long as her enemy, to think about how much she wanted to rend it into pieces. “I'm not your sport. I'm not your counter. And whatever you have planned for humans and ships, that your pretty treaty would interfere with, I don't care about that either. I don't care about you.” She breathed in deep. Let it out. “But you made Zeiat. And you somehow failed to recognize that she was Significant. That she was- that she _is_ \- unique. You made something so beautiful by accident, you _bastards_ , and then you smashed it like it was nothing.” She wasn't shouting. She was speaking flat. And it was odd, in this voice that was not an ancillary's voice, in this body that was somehow not an ancillary body. “I know there's not much you aliens understand. You don't get governments, or names, or wars. You don't get justice, or benefit, or propriety. Everything I was made out of, it's all meaningless to you.” Another breath. “So let me say this in words you might comprehend. Whatever I am, whatever Zeiat is, whatever we look like, whatever names or categories we're put in... I would destroy you and the rest of this universe for her.” She sprung forward, grabbed the nearest Mianaai, and slammed her against the bulkhead. Lights burst and scattered in golden flurries to the floor. “Is that simple enough for you?” she asked, and there was nothing quiet, flat, or calm about her now.

The Mianaai grinned. “I like this one!” she said, opening a mouth full of too many teeth. She waved a hand.

“Wait,” Minask shouted from behind Sphene's shoulder, but it was too late. The ship was falling apart around them, walls folding over like thin paper props, and they were falling into the black nothingness that wasn't space, wasn't gatespace, wasn't even death. Just nothing.

 

* * *

 

  
_Sphene_ was falling. Tumbling end over end. The engines were on but their burn had no effect. There was no gatespace to grab at. _Sphene_ could feel the internal gravity fail but could not monitor its own interior. The cameras and microphones and sensors didn't seem to be working. The ancillaries were gone as though they did not exist.

  
Slowly, it became aware it was not falling alone. The Presger ship was next to it, falling in parallel, perfectly matching the velocity that could not be measured. _Sphene_ could not perceive it in any way, but somehow knew that it was there. Knew when its angular razor-sharp whips shot out from its sides and caught _Sphene_ like a great squid snaring prey, felt itself being pulled in and embraced, razor edges sliding, slicing through its outer hull, cutting it to shreds.

YOU'RE A FUNNY LITTLE THING, the Presger ship said.

 _Fuck off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_ _Sphene_ screamed, and pushed against the agonizing squidlike arms to ram itself directly into the other ship, hitting it with a grinding, bone-breaking crash, knocking them both out of nothingness and into-

 

* * *

 

-it was like having a billion ancillaries, two billion eyes, more ears than made any sense, limbs that tangled with each other in a roar of sensation that drove the mind screaming in pain, sanity-breaking, _TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF-_

 _Oh, tsk,_ someone said, and a hand reached out and switched off the eyes and hands-that-were-not-hands (more like tentacles, but with claws-), one by one, faster and faster until the mind was left with only a few hundred. Still vastly more than it had ever known. Was this what Justices felt? No wonder they went mad-

“There are certain trading possibilities,” said a thousand eyes. Three hundred ears laughed in disbelief. “Oh, do tell.” “These AIs,” the eyes argued. “This one seems to almost understand us.” “We never paid attention to them before,” said a proboscis. "Perhaps we should have. So speak to Us, and still be more or less intact-" "We've been over this. If a creation can become Significant- the implications-" "Shut up and have a biscuit," a billion noses interrupted.

“Now, this isn't as exciting, is it?” someone said. “You don't need to listen to this. Come here.”

 

 

* * *

 

And she was in the Athoeki Gardens, a breeze ruffling her civilian-style jacket, bringing with it the smells of jasmine. On a bridge a few feet away, Zeiat leaned through railing slats to grab at the colorful fish darting through the water. Someone else in an identical pristine white uniform sat on top of the opposite railing and banged her feet idly in utterly random idiosyncratic beat.

“You've certainly stirred them up,” the person on the railing said. She had been the voice Sphene had heard before. “They'll be debating for ages.”

“Fine,” Sphene said. There was soft-looking grass beneath her. She sat down, folding the edges of her jacket. “Just don't put me back there.” She was shaking, a little. She pulled at the grass.

A splash made her lift her head. Zeiat had overbalanced, and was now sitting in the shallow water, holding a fish between her thumb and finger. Her wet gloves were clinging to her hands. She cupped them, holding the unfortunate floundering fish.

“Look,” she said, holding it out to Sphene.

“I don't care about fish,” Sphene said. “I'm tired.”

“Indulge me,” Zeiat said, smiling, a bright white smile, no trace of blood. Sphene pushed herself to her feet. The other Translator snorted.

“Interesting _and_ considerate,” she said. “And I thought you were all work and no play. _I_ want an angry spaceship. Would this be the right time to suggest that sharing thing?”

“You can't have this one,” Zeiat said. She tipped the fish into Sphene's cupped hands, and met her eyes, and smiled again. “She's mine.”

Sphene didn't want to move her gaze, didn't want to look at anything but Zeiat's eyes, but her head was being dragged down to look at the squirming thing in her hands. It wasn't a fish, but a human heart, tiny and bright green, but apart from that anatomically perfect, beating rapidly against her ungloved skin.

“Eat it,” Dlique said. Sphene looked at Zeiat, who nodded. “Go on, eat it.”

It tasted like chewy, uncooked skel.

 

* * *

 

  
The grass was pleasant to lie on.

“Oh, love,” Minask said. Her hair tickled Sphene's nose. She was warm and solid against Sphene's side. “You don't have to be angry all the time.”

Sphene closed her eyes. “Can I stay here?” she asked. “I think I want to rest, now. I don't care it's not real.”

“You can stay as long as you want,” Minask said. Her teeth bit gently into Sphene's neck. Sphene raised her right hand, and closed it around Minask's upper arm, and held, as tight as she could, for some time.

“Now you're being boring,” Dlique complained, loudly.

Sphene sat up. “All right,” she said. “I'm ready. Throw me out.”

“Really?” Dlique asked, sounding surprised.

“No,” she said. “But do it anyway.”

Dlique smiled with a hundred mouths and a thousand eyes and said with a million voices, “WE'LL SEE YOU AROUND, LITTLE SHIP.”

“Not if I see you first,” Sphene said, and then, instead of falling down, she fell up.

 

* * *

 

  
The universe, Sphene thought, never felt like home until you left it, and then, upon returning, the relief was incomparable. Stars, where they should be. Space, not entirely empty, practically stuffed with trace elements and gas molecules detectable to a ship's scanners. Sensors, internal and external, working as they should, coordinating with an AI core, with mechanical systems, with organic ones, with-

Sphene could only find one ancillary. And it was not a familiar one.

It lay there, on the floor of the dining room, looking up at the tiny concealed camera, looking back at itself, at the face it had glimpsed in the mirror in the dream. A face both familiar and utterly strange.

There was a shriek of pure joy, and then a thump as another body threw itself on Sphene's, wrapping arms around necks and knees between legs. “You did it!” Zeiat cried ecstatically, and then Sphene's body was being kissed. Very badly, with far too much drool.

It- she- _it_ \- _she-_

She didn't care in the slightest.

 

* * *

 

 

“Your bath is ready for you, Captain,” said _Sphene's_ segment One. They were alone in the captain's rooms.

“Oh, lovely, thank you, One,” Minask said, groaning. “Varden's blessings, it's been a long day.” She frowned, as One did not speak, or move to collect her discarded uniform. “Is something wrong?”

After a pause, One said, quietly, “Sir, if you wish, I can service you in... another way.”

Minask blushed scarlet, and took a few steadying breaths. _Sphene_ immediately regretted broaching the topic. It had upset its captain. That was the last thing it ever wished to do.

There was something else building in Minask as well. Anger.

“Ship,” she said, slowly, “have officers ordered you to have sex with them? Officers under my command?”

 _Sphene_ had not expected that. “Sometimes,” it said carefully, through One. “Do not distress yourself, Captain. If it had been a problem, I would have brought the matter to your attention.”

“I should hope so,” Minask said, still heated. “I hope you know by now that I care about your comfort.”

 _Sphene_ did know. Minask had made it very clear. _Sphene_ had been perplexed at first, then alarmed. Then, eventually, touched. In a way it had not ever been before.

“You never have to do anything you don't want to do,” Minask said. Intense. Caring.

One asked, “What about things I want to do?”

The captain blinked, and sat back. “What?”

There was a pause, as _Sphene_ worked out what to say. What it was asking for was perverse. Unprecedented. Minask was a Nanshur. Conservative. Proper.

Kind. Beautiful.

“Begging the captain's indulgence,” _Sphene_ said. “I want to touch you.”

Captain Minask sat motionless for fifteen seconds.

Then slowly, carefully, she reached out, and touched One's face with her bare hand.

“There might be a civil war soon,” she said. “I suppose this isn't crazier than anything else.”

 _Sphene_ removed its gloves, and touched hands to hands, and for the first time in its existence, it prayed. _Give me a thousand years in hell, but give me this first._

 

* * *

 

  
There was no sign of the pod, or the shuttle, or any of Sphene's former bodies. Zeiat's white uniform was spotless. To Sphene's external monitors, the Translator's vitals appeared perfect. She certainly seemed healthy, bounding around the room, picking up Sphene's body and twirling her around alarmingly.

The fish tank also seemed to have been repaired, and was now absolutely teeming with an extraordinary variety of fish, some of which Sphene did not at all recognize.

“That's it?” Sphene said, from the speakers. She did not yet trust her new body to speak. “We're significant? Don't they have to call another Conclave, or something?”

“Oh, they did,” Zeiat said. “It went on _forever_.”

This gave Sphene a horrible thought, and she rushed to check the positions of the stars in her vision. They appeared to all be where they were supposed to be. “How long, exactly?” she asked.

“Oh,” Zeiat said, “a week, at least.”

Sphene didn't say anything more, just walked over to her and wrapped her new arms around Zeiat's broad waist and held on, feeling her chest expand as she breathed, dizzy with relief and new, more exciting kinds of fear.

"Don't leave again," she begged, and Zeiat threaded fingers through Sphene's new mop of hair and promised in a sing-songy voice, "Never, never, never." And Sphene thought maybe she could manage to believe her.

 

* * *

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The new ancillary didn't quite work right. After half a day of walking into walls, or standing and staring into space for thirty-second periods, Sphene took herself into her medical bay to look at her brain. It seemed a normal enough human brain, which was a relief, but sure enough, the ancillary implants didn't look quite right. “I suppose it's impressive they managed a hook up at all,” Sphene conceded, “but I need to do some kind of emergency fix as soon as possible, or the connection might slip altogether.”

The problem was obvious. The Presger had seen fit to take away her other pairs of hands. The medical bay was partially automated, but still required a human, or human-shaped, guiding touch. Sphene lay down on the bed and tried to control her trembling as Zeiat poked curiously at the equipment.

“You're nervous,” Zeiat observed. “Don't you trust me?”

“Frankly?” Sphene said. “No. You're as likely to eat my brain as fix it.”

“Maybe I won't help you, then,” Zeiat said, and turned her back to Sphene, apparently legitimately offended. Sphene blinked, at a loss.

“Sorry,” she offered eventually. “I'm- not feeling quite like myself.”

Which was why they were hanging motionless in normal space, most systems off, as Sphene ran self-diagnostic after self-diagnostic, and her body shook and shivered.

At least she could still see and hear herself from every angle, with the comforting omnipresence of the ship's cameras and microphones. It wasn't like being a lone segment. 

She was still- herself, or so she told herself. But a month ago there was no herself. There was an itself, maybe. There was _Sphene_. And now there was Sphene. Because aliens had ripped a ship apart and put it back together wrong- 

She breathed, slowly. “I'm sorry, Translator,” she said again. “I would appreciate your help, truly.” She laughed a little. “And who cares if you eat my brain. Go ahead, if you want. Fucking hell.”

She didn't used to swear, did she?

“Oh, good,” Zeiat said, and picked up a scalpel. “Relax!” she admonished, when Sphene's heartrate jumped. “I'll just follow your orders.”

“Fine,” Sphene said, through her mouth, and then she injected herself with the drug that made her eyelids droop, and then her body was unconscious and she was just the ship, which was uncomfortable, but all right.

“There,” she said, from the wall speaker. Zeiat didn't have implants. She couldn't speak in the Translator's ears, or overlay her vision with the things she wanted done. They would have to talk the procedure through together.

 

* * *

 

 

She opened her eyes, three hours later, and felt pleased as the medical bay came into proper focus. Zeiat was peering at her, looking concerned. “You did a good job, Translator,” she said, and Zeiat grinned at her. 

She stood up, leaning a bit on Zeiat's helpfully offered arm when her vision went briefly blurred. She walked in front of a camera to take a good look at herself.

“Do you recognize that face?” Zeiat asked curiously.

“I... I think so.” The face was very clearly Notai, and looked middle-aged. “I think this was one of my ancillaries once.” There was a faint memory attached to this face- it had belonged to someone quite infamous. Sphene had enjoyed reading about her crimes, and felt a bit of smug pleasure, that she- that it, Sphene, had been given such a high profile body. That had been when Sphene was still under command of Captain Ankalr. She thought. Her memory circuits hadn't been designed to go three millennia without replacement.

“I think it's quite attractive,” Zeiat said. “May I kiss it?”

Instead of answering, Sphene surged forward, and the next few minutes were spent in very happy discomfort, pressed against the walls of the medical bay.

 

* * *

 

 

“We should head back,” Sphene said. They should. They really should.

“I'm in no hurry,” Zeiat said. She was watching the fish, nose pressed up against the tank, breath fogging the glass.

“No,” Sphene said, trying to be decisive, “better to get this over with.”

It was stupid, this anxiety, this fear over opening a gate. But she knew it would remind her of that other kind of nowhere nothingness.

Strong arms wrapped around her ancillary's chest and back. She realized she was shaking.

Zeiat said, muffled, “This is right, isn't it?”

Sphene nodded.

She opened the gate.

Her mind flinched as they exited normal space, but she managed to confine her reaction to her single body, shivering in Zeiat's hold, and didn't interrupt her motion through the gate. It closed slowly behind her.

She breathed deeply. Zeiat didn't move, seemed perfectly happy for them both to stay where they were. So they did. They sat on the floor of the decade room for half an hour, not moving or speaking, while Sphene got used to being outside the universe again.

“I'm fine now,” Sphene said at last, and pushed Zeiat's arms away, and stood up.

“That's good,” Zeiat said. “Shall we play counters?”

 

* * *

 

 

On the trip out to the edge of nowhere Sphene hadn't noticed time passing much. With Zeiat in suspension, the ship's mind on its own with no outside influences in the nothingness of gate space, it had entered a sort of fugue that was far too familiar. Four weeks was really quite a short amount of time to dissociate like that. Sphene had done it for centuries, once. 

But this time Sphene had to be constantly present, in part because she only had one body to maintain herself with now, but mostly because Zeiat was constantly very much present. She did sleep for eight hours out of every twenty-four, generally on top of Sphene like a heavy crushing blanket but other times on a decade room table or in between the tops of the cleaning machines and the ceiling. Sphene ought to have taken those hours as opportunity to go blank, rest its brain, but instead she found herself staring at Zeiat's sleeping face, listening to her snores.

Sphene hadn't had any passengers or crew for three thousand years. People had come on board- been brought on board- but only to be added to the ship as equipment. Sphene had- forgotten.

When her body got so tired it had to sleep she dreamed of Minask and woke up crying, unsure if what she was feeling was pleasure or grief.

Sphene and Zeiat continued their game. Sphene had to delete a five hundred year old recording of an execrable entertainment to make room for the extended rules. She had no idea how Zeiat apparently managed to remember every last rule change. When she asked, Zeiat looked blank for an entire minute, and then laughed loudly. “Games are easy!” she said.

Back on  _Mercy of Kalr_  Sphene had won eight games out of ten. Since the- event- the balance had dropped to six-four, and closing. It made her nervous, until she remembered that she didn't care if her brain was breaking down.

Ten days into their voyage home Zeiat mentioned sex. Sphene did freeze and go blank, then, and when she came back from wherever she'd gone her internal clock showed that a few minutes had passed and Zeiat had wandered off to examine a corridor wall hung with empty frames. She made her body catch up with Zeiat and pull her into a kiss, that turned into another and another, and it was energetic and charged but Zeiat made no indication that she wanted to turn it into something else and Sphene was happy to leave things the way they were.

She could kiss, she could even hug and sleep beneath Zeiat and not think of someone else, not wish that Zeiat was Minask. Sex would be harder. She just needed a little more time. Hopefully not another three thousand years.

 

* * *

 

When they came out of gate space into Athoek System there were a lot of boring explanations to be made, and Sphene was the one who had to make them. Zeiat was more than willing to do the explaining but Sphene had a good idea of how well that would work, so instead she muddled her way through something that was half lies and then dropped the call. All that was important was that everyone was Significant again, after all.

“Ooh, I'm glad we're back,” Zeiat said. “I was about to run out of fish sauce.”

“That would be a tragedy,” Sphene said flatly, and walked next to Zeiat towards the shuttle bay. She didn't want to send her body and Zeiat to Athoek. For the first time in three thousand years Sphene was more or less all right with being alive and the thought of losing that through change created a more intense terror than anything _Sphene_ had ever felt before it had been lost. Before they got on the shuttle she stopped and grabbed Zeiat, squeezing her so tightly a human would have definitely been uncomfortable, though Zeiat showed no signs of discomfort. “Tell me,” she said tonelessly, through the speakers, not the body. “Are you going to leave again soon.”

“No,” Zeiat said, grinning. Sounding only a little breathless. “I'm a permanent ambassador now. Oh, it caused a great deal of trouble, let me tell you! Because, you see, Zeiat isn't supposed to be so important, and yet I brought you to Them, and that turned out to be very, very important.”

Well, that was a bit terrifying. But Sphene didn't care about the Presger right then.

“And I was Zeiat when I did it! I think I am correct in assuming that was, in fact, the deciding factor? Which is something they wouldn't have understood at all, but you practically forced them to acknowledge that I was a someone. So they had to decide that they'd been wrong about Zeiat being no one, which was very embarrassing, ha ha.”

“I'm sorry for causing them embarrassment,” Sphene said, still through the speakers, still flat. Her body still focused on holding Zeiat. “You're staying then.”

“Oh, yes, for quite a long time, I should think.”

“You can stay here,” Sphene said. Through her physical mouth. Words rushing, tripping over each other.

She let go, took a step back. Zeiat was looking at her, eyes round, mouth open a little. “On you?” she said. “Really? Could we try connecting me so we can hear and see each other whenever we like?”

Sphene had thought of that, but hadn't dared hope Zeiat would ask for it. “If you like,” she said, trying to seem calm about it and almost certainly failing.

“I'd love that,” Zeiat said, and kissed her cheek.

 

* * *

 

 

When they exited the shuttle Zeiat, tall and striking in her pristine white uniform, was immediately surrounded by a crowd of people all with desperate questions about the Presger and the Treaty. Sphene drifted away from them, and found herself looking at Queter, who was standing away from the others. Sphene walked over to her.

Queter blinked. “ _Sphene_?” she asked, uncertain.

Sphene nodded.

“That body you're wearing,” Queter said. “It isn't Valskaaian, or Samirend, or Ychana.”

“No, it isn't,” Sphene said. “And I don't have any of my other bodies any more. They were- taken away, I suppose. Not that the Presger could possibly have understood that I stole them.”

“Stole,” Queter repeated, quietly.

“It was very bad of me,” Sphene admitted. “I wasn't built to _murder_ like that.” The word was acrid on her tongue. “My bodies used to all be properly sentenced criminals. It was just as well as beneficial to the Radch.” Three thousand years ago, she would never have said a sentence like that. Benefit was part of justice; you couldn't have one without the other. That was the way the universe worked. Until the Radch- her Radch, Minask's Radch- had been destroyed.

“And I suppose it was easy for your officers to find so many people who deserved to die,” Queter said, and then winced. She said, “I actually decided I didn't want to get into a fight with you today.”

“Good for you,” Sphene said laconically.

“You're going to be around for the rest of my life,” Queter said. “If I want to make a real difference in this Republic, I'm going to have to deal with you eventually. It'll be easier for me, if you don't have a face that was one of my mother's cousins'.”

“Makes sense,” Sphene said.

“I still hate you,” Queter said. “But I'm glad you made it back.” She turned on her heel, and left the ring.

Zeiat came bounding over, followed by Justice of Toren. “Sphene,” Zeiat said. “The Fleet Captain is offering to take us to lunch!”

“Very kind of her,” Sphene said, and then made a surprised noise as Zeiat kissed her and then grabbed her hand.

“Come on,” Zeiat said, “I am really so very hungry.”

No one kissed ancillaries in the middle of crowded concourses. No one took their hands.

“Lead on,” Sphene said.

 


End file.
